Toddlers and 2-Year Old Programming
"I'm just a kid, I have a lot of stuff to do yet."
~ Clint Eastwood
Our commitment to quality care continues in our Toddler and 2-year old rooms. Children at this age are eager learners who energetically interact with materials and people. We at the center realize that an environment and curriculum that encourages each child's growing need of independence is a basis for developing and mastering life skills and a positive self esteem. By playing in both large and small groups, these children will learn valuable social skills needed to effectively interact with others. While engaging in fun activities toddlers and 2-year olds will discover their likes and talents and will be exposed to fundamentals such as: colors, shapes, self-help skills, as well as social and language development.
Children under the age of 2 years old will have a notebook system for direct communication with their teacher(s). In this notebook the teacher will log the daily activities, feedings and the rest times of your child. Parents will be asked to list pertinent information that will ensure the individualized schedule of each child is up-to-date, to inculde but not limited to: the last time your child ate, slept and was changed, as well as mood and sleeping patterns of the night before. Parents of 2-year olds will find daily information posted in the Parent Area of the room.
Arts for Kids has an individualized program for the needs of children ages of
6-weeks to 2-years old.
All children will have individual contact and attention through feeding, diapering and learning experience.
Each child will follow their individual routine of feeding and sleeping set by their home environment.
The children will be provided with equipment to fit their educational development and creative expression appopriate to their age level.
Daily communication with parents:
~ A notebook for each child under two years of age will be sent home with parents summarizing child's activities.
Parents will bring back notebook with information for teachers.
Staff will ensure that throughout the day infants will be moved into different activities.
Potty Training Policy
If parents and the center are in agreement that a child is developmentally ready, Arts for Kids will begin to encourage potty training at age 2.
At 2-1/2 years old age, regular potty training is part of our daily program and routine. Children will be encouraged to wear pull-ups or underwear (depending on progress) and have plenty of extra pull-ups or underwear on hand. They will be taken to the bathroom every 2 hours (possibly more often at the beginning). If a child is wearing underwear, they will be put in a pull-up or diaper for naps, unless completely trained. We will use lots of praise for a "job well done" and lots of understanding when "accidents happen" if a child has a rough day.
Sometimes potty training can happen overnight and sometimes it can be a long process - we just need to have a lot of patience.
February 2020 News!
Toddler I
Hello Parents,
Hearts, cupids, love is in the air!
Our friends have had a busy month! We had a great time with our Packer parties! We’ve been tossing the football, saying touchdown, even putting our arms up like a goal. We do-a-dotted a Packer sign, made cheese head hats and decorated our door with Packer snowmen!
We’ve been practicing shoveling sand and Styrofoam (snow) in our sensory table in boxes. Climbing in big boxes was a challenge for our friends. They really enjoyed playing in them with the balls. We took lots of pictures. We hope you enjoyed pictures of the cheese head hats on our friends heads! We had to take them quickly!
We’ve been singing “There was a Chubby Snowman,” “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” and “Wheels on the Bus.” We are practicing using gestures and movements to the songs! We will be having a Valentine’s Day Party! We will put a sign up sheet by our door for sign up for treats as the date gets closer. We read the stories “How to Build a Snowman” and “Where’s Puppy?” We still enjoy dancing to the musical penguin!
A Finger Play
“There was a chubby snowman, who had a carrot nose, along came a bunny and what do you suppose? That hungry little bunny was looking for his lunch, he ate that snowman’s carrot nose; nibble, nibble, crunch!”
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Ms. Karen & Ms. Lori
Toddler II
Hope the New Year is starting out well for everyone!
We have been enjoying the winter snow both inside and out. Building snowmen, painting snow, riding in and pulling our friends in sleds. We also made snowflake doilies and footprint snowmen in art class.
Bedtime Week was fun because there is nothing better than wearing pajamas to school!
We continue to work on using our words more, as well as taking turns. We are getting better at taking our winter gear off with a little help.
This month we will celebrate Valentine’s Day and learn about hearts and other shapes. February is also Dental Month so we will spend a week talking about taking care of our teeth and going to the dentist.
We will be having a Valentine’s Day Party on the 14th. The children are welcome to hand out Valentine cards. Class lists will be available if you would like to join in. We will keep you posted. Enjoy the month!
Ms. Janice and Ms. Tina
2’s I
Our themes last month were: Snowmen, Winter/Winter Clothing and Winter Animals. The kiddos enjoyed making snowmen with their names on them, and making mittens. They also enjoyed all the different winter animals.
Our themes this month are: Groundhog Day, Valentine’s Day, Dental and Dinosaurs. Parents please make sure your child has extra clothes, mittens, hats, snow pants and boots. Also remember to check your child’s take home folder for any art work or important paperwork.
If you have any questions/concerns about your child or what we are working on in the classroom please feel free to ask.
Ms. Ashley & Ms. Maddi
2’s II
Welcome February!
Thank goodness it’s a new month. Seemed like January took forever.
Hopefully we got rid of all the horrible sickness.
Last month we all had a lot of fun with each other. The first week of January we talked about the New Year (wow that seems long ago). The kids thought it was cool that some people celebrate by watching fireworks!
We refreshed our brains by talking about shapes. We used our large motor skills to hop on shapes. We even got to lace shapes and match them on file folders. By the end of the week most of my friends knew
their shapes! The following week we learned about why bears hibernate and what hibernating is. We had a lot of fun during our Ice and Snow week. We loved painting the snow and ice! This month we will be having a Valentine’s Day party on Friday the 14th. If you would like to bring something I will have a sign up sheet outside the classroom.
I will also put the names of kids in the classroom and tape it to cubbies. Have a wonderful month!
Ms. Laura
2's III
Last month we got 2020 off to a great start learning about how people celebrate New Year’s around the world. We then focused on lots of winter related activities. The children enjoyed talking and learning about winter activities such as sledding, skiing, making snowmen and ice skating.
While the weather didn’t cooperate with trying some of these activities, the children loved pretending. We also learned about penguins in honor of National Penguin Awareness Day and what animals do in the winter (hibernate or adapt to the change in weather). The children loved using their fine motor skills to color and glue a variety of penguin and bear related projects, practiced their shapes by matching shape cutouts to hand drawn shapes, fitting shapes into shape frames, digging for shapes, painting with ice cubes and using tongs to fill a jar with pom poms for a fun non-melting snowman. We worked together to pull each other on sleds in the snow and decorate our own bear cave for our new stuffed bears and had many dance parties as the children discovered “The Gummy Bear” song and requested to listen to that and “Freeze Dance” daily! We got to use our imaginations with a contact paper “sticky wall” and foam shapes: we made everything from different shapes to houses, trains and cars! We finished the month with lots of winter activities, including wax paper ice skating! The children have really improved on putting on/taking off their snow gear independently and it is very sweet to see them try to help each other with boots, gloves or jacket zippers!
As we head into this new month, we will be doing many activities that help build on social and emotional skills. We will be having a Valentine’s Day party on the 14th. Treats are appreciated but please don’t feel obligated. A class list will be available if you would like to bring in Valentines.
A big thank you for letting me know when there are changes in sleep habits for your child or changes in home routines. This information may seem trivial, but it can make a big impact on your child’s day and it helps me be aware of changes that may be needed in our activities for the day. If you have any questions or concerns about your child, please don’t hesitate to ask.
Hope you have a wonderful month!
Ms. Sara B and 2’s III
Toddler III
We made it through January! I feel like I missed half the month between being gone on vacation and my children being sick, but hopefully February will be much better! We did manage to make it outside some last month, which is rare because usually the whole month is too cold for us to get out. Thank goodness for warmer winter weather! Last month we said goodbye to Harrison who turned 2 and moved to our two year old room. We then welcomed Gus. Welcome to our room! This month our themes will be Hearts and Love, Valentine’s Day, Music and Body Parts. Look for more information coming soon about a class party for Valentine’s Day. It’ll be a great time! Have a wonderful February! Ms. Marie
